Deanna spend a lot of time with relatives from the more rural parts of Betazed and picked up their accent, Lwaxana was not amused and ordered Mr.Homn to teach Deanna to speak properly, it didn't work.
Then one day a young and attractive Starfleet officer showed up and thought Deanna's accent was really cute, Lwaxana was relieved because she realized Deanna's speech problem would not hinder her in her man hunting future. It was her who told Deanna to join starfleet to get her off Betazed and into the arms of more men who seemed to think talking like a betazoid hick is cute.

Telepaths don't use their ears. They listen with their minds. In all likelihood she should be so lazy about using her ears that she should have an accent similar to a deaf person.

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That's a good point. One could argue that it wouldn't apply to Troi not being a full telepath, but I could see it with other Betezoids. Wasn't there an episode with some non-verbal telepaths that sounded like that?

It bothers me that in all the latter appearances, Sirtis stopped playing Deanna Troi and just played Marina Sirtis.

Does it bother anyone else?
Or (since Troi was seemingly never too popular) was it an improvement?

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I think this was an improvement. Her original greek-inspired accent sounded like a speech-impediment. It was the biggest problem I had with the character. She's much more charming with her regular UK accent.

It bothers me that in all the latter appearances, Sirtis stopped playing Deanna Troi and just played Marina Sirtis.

Does it bother anyone else?
Or (since Troi was seemingly never too popular) was it an improvement?

Click to expand...

I think this was an improvement. Her original greek-inspired accent sounded like a speech-impediment. It was the biggest problem I had with the character. She's much more charming with her regular UK accent.

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Yeah, I greatly prefer Marina Sirtis' regular accent.

It sucks that the producers thought it would be too confusing for two of actors on TNG to have British accents, forcing her to change her it.

I thought the original idea was that it was supposed to 'accentuate' her being non-human, more than anything else. The real problem isn't with Deanna's dodgy accent, it's with the fact that Mrs Roddenberry made a mockery of those original intentions by playing Lwaxana with her regular voice, which is what forced the aforementioned line about Deanna's father into the episode to cover Majel's apparent unwillingness to play along and do the strange accent. And then, of course, every Betazoid that followed Lwaxana just used the actor's normal voices, too.

I agree with the general consensus that Marina using her 'real' voice in the movies was much better. In fact, one of the weirdest things for me about the finale of Enterprise was hearing her using her TV series voice again (she kinda sounds like she's forgotten how to do it, but at least she does try).

It bothers me that in all the latter appearances, Sirtis stopped playing Deanna Troi and just played Marina Sirtis.

Does it bother anyone else?
Or (since Troi was seemingly never too popular) was it an improvement?

Click to expand...

I think this was an improvement. Her original greek-inspired accent sounded like a speech-impediment. It was the biggest problem I had with the character. She's much more charming with her regular UK accent.

Click to expand...

Maybe it is not so obvious to over-seas English speakers but that isn't her regular accent, it seems to be a weird mix of RP and.. something...

When she does her appearances on voyager she is getting a lot closer to her normal accent* but not still not quite.